Cooking Your Way Through the Madness

As Americans work to cope with the recent transitions in life due to COVID-19, many turn to therapeutic creative pursuits like cooking or baking. Molly Follett, baker at LGBTQ-owned Georgia Beer Garden, finds flatbreads easy to make for beginning bakers and easily elevated depending on the toppings selected. (Photo courtesy of Molly Follett)

Ohana calls it mindfulness; Adelman refers to it as a flow state. Name aside, it means cooking gets them in the zone, focused on the moment at hand.

“You’re so invested and so right in it that the rest of the world kind of drops away. What

psychology tells us is it reduces your heart rate, all the anxiety-reducing thoughts. You just get to be, and practice a mindful state,” Adelman said. “I find creative endeavors are extraspecial as flow states. With a creative endeavor, it activates different parts of your brain.”

He referred to this phenomenon as like a “mental massage exercise” to alleviate stress, and said baking in particular is a great example, as it requires measurements, calculation, time and specificity.

“It’s that nice nexus, and then you get to eat the results,” Adelman said.

Practicing mindfulness like this helps to put aside feelings of anger, anxiety and depression in order to be present in the recipe, Ohana said. She said it primarily assists with anxietybased disorders, but also helps with feelings of self-worth and confidence.

Reclaiming recipes

Oftentimes, recipes are handed down through generations—Adelman has his father’s chocolate Cowboy Cake recipe—but when biological families aren’t affirming, it can make a once-beloved meal less beloved to make. This is where families of choice come into play, a reminder that “we have always developed our own sense of community out of necessity,” Adelman said.

Adelman specifically searches for queer bakers or chefs, or even community-driven blogs and

Ohana recommends working to create new rituals.

“So much about cooking and eating is about ritual. When a person doesn’t have these rituals from their past that they want to continue, sometimes we need a reminder that we have the ability to create new rituals for our families,” she said. “There is so much power in the ability to create for yourself.”

Many cooking rituals are based on shared experiences, which are on hold right now due to shelter-in-place and social distancing guidelines.

“We need to think a little more creative right now,” Ohana said. “Instead of hosting a dinner party, you can pack your dinner to go and drop off at someone’s house. Leave it on the doorstep of a loved one with a special note and let them know you are thinking of them. If loved ones are too far, consider surprising a neighbor.”

In the meantime, she said to focus on what is available to be social about this time: social media.

“Take to Instagram—photograph your hard work and share virtually,” she said. “I have been doing a lot of that, even doing Facebook live cooking classes. Again, it helps to connect and build community, even if it is a cyber community.”

But just because it’s on Instagram doesn’t make cooking the ideal therapeutic activity for everyone. Adelman cautioned against folks jumping on the “quarantine baking” bandwagon because everyone else seems to be doing it.

“If people hate to cook, this is not the time to take up cooking … it’s not going to give them the same flow as if they’re doing something they really enjoy,” he said. “If people want to engage in an activity that gets them into a flow, maybe watch a Netflix series or reading; something somebody loves is the way to get to that state. Not by

doing what they feel like they are obligated to do because people are telling them it’s the trendy thing.”